Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
App makes sleep hard work
It’s time for some Pillow talk.
No, not that kind. And not the down, throw, memory foam, buckwheat or lumbar kinds either.
We’re going to chat about Pillow, the app.
Pillow bills itself as “your smart sleep assistant.” And here you thought sleep was the one thing you could handle all by yourself.
Pillow brags that it’s “the best sleep tracking app for your Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad with a unique set of features aiming to improve your sleep quality, help you wake up easier and fall asleep faster.” Included is a “smart’’ alarm that, if you are in a light sleep stage, wakes you before your alarm so “you will wake up smoother.” Waking up before the alarm sounds pretty dumb to me.
Still, the Pillow sleep tracking app is free. So I downloaded Pillow when I got an Apple Watch recently.
Here’s what it does: “Pillow monitors your movements and sounds while you sleep. Using advanced algorithms, Pillow can keep a detailed history of how well you’ve slept and when is the optimal time to wake you up. Using heart rate data from your Apple Watch or a wearable device, Pillow gives you detailed information about your heart rate during sleep.”
“Algorithms.” “Optimal.” “Data.” Just that description nearly put me to sleep. Armed with Pillow, I was prepared to rest better than ever.
Instead, sleep now feels like work. I feel like I’m always engaged in a Pillow fight.
First, I never have much battery life on my watch by day’s end, and I never remember to check until crawling into bed. So instead of curling up, I have to get up and charge up for a good 15 minutes or so, delaying my bedtime. So much for that eight hours I was going to get.
And while the Pillow app has a “start” button on the watch, it doesn’t work independently of the iPhone. So I must make sure the phone is charged and open the phone app too. After turning off the lights, I’ll notice that phone app, which has a purple screen, emits a light that can’t be conducive to sleep. So then I have to shut off the display. Then I have to hit the watch start button. After all these steps, I have only seven and a half hours on the “time left” counter before the alarm sounds.
That is if I fall asleep immediately, which I have yet to do; my fastest time to fall asleep is nine minutes, and typically it takes 20 or more. Usually because I’m too worried about falling asleep to actually fall asleep.
When I wake up and stop the Pillow app, I’m given a sciency graph of sleep stats — when I was awake (in orange), in REM sleep (in pink), in light sleep (green) or in deep sleep (blue). It tells me how long I was in bed, how long I was asleep and how long it took to fall asleep. And then it gives me a percentage score.
I have yet to score above a mediocre 76 percent. And I’ve scored as low — on a night when I only slept five hours and 30 minutes after taking 50 minutes to fall asleep — as a failing 56 percent.
Averaging it all together, I’m a C- student when it comes to slumber. Sadly, sleeping was one area in which I always felt I excelled.
It’s enough to make me crawl in bed with the covers over my head, only my Pillow — not to be confused with MyPillow, like in that Minnesota man’s commercials — would just critique me more.
In its “Snooze Lab,” section, the app shares things like one’s longest sleep duration (8 hours, 17 minutes) and insights like one’s optimal bed time (10:47 p.m.) and sleeping personality. It tells me I’m a “lark” and that larks “love to start their day early and perform their best early during the day.” Well, I did until using the Pillow app and feeling like I failed before the day even began.
Pillow also will record sounds that you make in the night. If you want to hear them, and you will — what crazy dreams was I having after binge-watching a crime series to make 16 audio occurrences last night?! — you’ll need to invest in the $4.99 in-app purchase and agree to give it access to your microphone to upgrade to Pillow Premium. I’ve listened to my 10- and 12-second bursts of audio and heard nothing fascinating — no snoring, no speaking in tongues, just readjustment noises and apologizing to a cat for kicking it during said readjustment.
Speaking of readjustment, I’m going to have to do something to improve my sleep. Maybe I need a new mattress and sheets. Perhaps I need new pajamas and new pillows.
Or maybe I just need to get rid of a certain Pillow.
Sleep on it, then email: jchristman@arkansasonline.com What’s in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman ’hood.